by Martin Booth
Hunching themselves down, the Scrottons started to advance in a line, their arms hanging at their sides, their hands in the water, feeling for rocks as they moved nearer.
Looking behind himself, Tim wondered if he could get to his fishing gear before the Scrottons reached him. If he could, the rod might serve as a weapon and, if they came to fighting at close quarters, the lead-filled priest in his bag might serve as a handy sap.
Then, suddenly, it dawned on him. Fumbling at the buttons of the breast pocket of his fishing shirt, Tim thrust his hand inside, feeling for the rowan disc. Finding it, he held it out and started to revolve it.
“Gha! Gha!” Scrotton grunted. It was a rasping sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “Look!” He turned to address his supporters. “’E’s got a rowan circle! Fat lotta good that’ll do ‘im, eh!”
Bending down, Scrotton found a small stone and hurled it at Tim. It struck his hand. His fingers opened involuntarily and the rowan disc fell into the river, spinning in an eddy on the edge of the main current. Tim, ignoring the advancing Scrottons, threw himself after it, stumbling over boulders in the river bed. The waves he made drove it further away. Scrotton also made to grab the disc, but Tim beat him to it. He quickly revolved it in his fingers.
The Scrottons stopped in their tracks, looking from one to the other in a perplexed fashion. Scrotton himself stood firm, his eyes closed. He was, Tim knew, fighting the power of the rowan disc.
Gradually, Tim stepped backward. Scrotton made no attempt to follow him. The power of the rowan disc was holding him. Tim did not take his eyes off Scrotton.
Suddenly, there was a frantic splashing in the river. The Scrottons were scrambling on to the bank and vanishing between the boulders. Scrotton himself turned and followed them.
Through the quarry rode four women exercising their horses. One waved and called out, “Catch anything?”
Tim returned the wave, putting the rowan disc back in his pocket, buttoning it up once more.
“Not yet,” he shouted back.
Arriving at a thick clump of hazel saplings, the riders followed the path behind it. Tim could make out their shapes through the branches but, by the time they reached the other side of the thicket, their outlines had faded and disappeared. The sound of the horses’ hooves died out instantly.
“If that’s not being saved by the cavalry,” Tim said aloud to himself, “I don’t know what is…”
Deciding to abandon his Wellington boots, Tim climbed the bank and, gathering up his fishing gear, set off for home. Glancing back at the quarry, he could just make out a Scrotton setting off up the rock face, leaving a trail of water as it rose higher.
Pip was in the sitting room when Tim arrived back at Rawne Barton. Making a detour past his father’s study to borrow his binoculars, Tim poked his head around the door and said perfunctorily, “Word, sis. Now! And call up the maestro!”
Leading the other two up to the attic, and kneeling by the old window set in the gable end of the house, Tim spat on the glass to loosen the grime and polished it with his handkerchief.
“Look at this!” he ordered, adjusting the focus on the binoculars and passing them to Sebastian. “Over at the quarry. What do you see?”
Sebastian saw nothing until Tim showed him how to refine the focus. Then he briefly studied the quarry and handed the binoculars to Pip.
“Scrotton!” she exclaimed.
“Look again, sis.”
“Plural!” retorted Pip. “I can see two of them.”
“There’s at least three,” Tim replied. “I came face to face with them at the river. Saved in the nick of time by the rowan disc and…”
“Gentlefolk on horseback?” Sebastian asked.
“How did you know…?” Tim began.
“Do not think, because I am not with you, that I am not with you,” Sebastian replied enigmatically.
“What are the Scrottons up to?” Pip wondered, lowering the binoculars.
“Shinning up and down,” Tim said.
“Yes, but why?”
“Think,” Sebastian said, “of a butterfly newly emerged from its chrysalis. It does not appear immediately to fly away. It lingers for a while, moving its wings, waiting for the veins therein to fill with blood, expand the tissue in the framework. It flexes its legs, unfurls its antennae, unrolls its proboscis, raises and lowers its abdomen…”
“Do you mean to say,” Pip asked incredulously, “that these Scrottons are — newly hatched?”
“You may put it in such words,” Sebastian replied.
“Then where are they coming from?” Tim mused.
“Later, when it is safe, I shall show you,” Sebastian answered.
At four o’clock that afternoon, when the sun was already beginning to drop, they left the house, crossed Rawne Ground, waded the river and made their way into the quarry. Tim wore a pair of old sneakers.
Nearing the loose stones that had fallen from the quarry face over the years, Sebastian paused and, telling the others to wait several paces behind him, he started scrambling up the gentle slope, arriving at the point where it reached the base of the sheer rock face. Here, he began to excavate the scree, pushing stones behind him. For several minutes, he bent forward and dug with his hands. Eventually, he stood up.
“Come here,” he invited Pip and Tim.
They joined Sebastian. In the loose shale and stones, there was what at first looked like a crumbled transparent plastic sack, the size of a small trash bag.
“What is it?” Tim inquired.
“To continue my allusion to an emerging butterfly,” Sebastian said, “this is, as it were, the shell of a chrysalis from which a replicate Scrotton has emerged.”
“You have to be joking!” Tim exploded.
Sebastian made no reply but the look on his face spoke volumes.
Thirteen
Winds of Wickedness
At the head of the line waiting to enter the biology laboratory on the first day back after vacation was Scrotton. Although his clothing was as creased and disheveled as usual, it was much cleaner. He made no effort to communicate with anyone else in the line and stood staring at his feet.
“Think that’s the original Scrotton we’ve grown to know and love?” Tim whispered to Pip.
Sebastian, overhearing him, shook his head and said, “That is one of the replicates. His clothing is clean because he has just hatched.”
“Like a butterfly,” Pip murmured. “The colors are brightest when it has only just left its chrysalis.”
The laboratory door was opened by a short-haired, handsome young man in his early twenties wearing a blue blazer, khaki trousers, a white shirt and a tie with a university crest embroidered upon it. His suede shoes were well brushed.
“Come in,” he invited the class, “and sit in your usual places, please.”
The pupils filed in and fanned out between the benches.
“My name,” the teacher began, “is Mr. David Loud-acre and I’m the substitute teacher taking Miss Bates’s classes this week.”
“That’s a weird name,” one of the cheekier boys remarked, trying it on with a new teacher who was, judging by his age and appearance, fresh out of college.
Mr. Loudacre made no immediate response, but his face hardened to stone and he stared intensely at the boy through eyes narrowed to little more than malevolent slits.
“And your name is…?” he inquired at length, each word redolent with anger.
“Newbould, sir,” the boy murmured and he shrank down in his seat, pretending to busy himself with the contents of his bag.
“Let’s get this quite clear from the start,” Mr. Loudacre began, surveying the class. “I will abide no rudeness, no insolence and no tomfoolery. Now,” he picked up a pile of printed worksheets, “Miss Bates has set a project for you to do which I shall supervise. It concerns the skeleton of a bird.” He turned and opened the door of a cupboard. Inside were a number of animal skeletons mounted on wire frames. “You,�
�� he pointed to Scrotton. “I wonder if you’d mind doing the honors and take out the skeleton of the chicken.”
Without replying, Scrotton went to the cupboard and gingerly removed the specimen, sliding its base carefully onto the teacher’s bench.
“Thank you,” Mr. Loudacre said, revolving the skeleton so that it was side-on to the class. Then, addressing Scrotton again, he added, “Hand out these sheets.”
Scrotton took a wedge of printed drawings of the chicken’s skeleton and started to make his way around the class.
“As I indicate the bones of the skeleton,” Mr. Loud-acre continued, “I want you to label your diagrams.”
There was a general fumbling for pencils and rulers.
“You will notice,” the teacher continued, “that a bird’s bones are particularly thin. This is to reduce weight and permit a degree of flexibility in order to make flight possible. If birds were built like Bruce Willis they’d never leave the ground.”
He laughed self-indulgently at his own joke, removed a ballpoint pen from his pocket and began to indicate different bones, writing the names of some of them on the whiteboard with a green marker. For thirty minutes, the class concentrated on labeling the bones. When they were done, Mr. Loudacre began dictating notes as to the function of each major bone, pointing out that the larger they were the more muscle attachment they carried. At the end of the lesson, the labeled diagrams were collected, once again by Scrotton, and the class was dismissed. Mr. Loudacre stood by the door to see them out of the room and down the corridor.
“So what do you think?” Tim asked as they walked out into the playground.
“He chose Scrotton,” Sebastian replied.
“And he asked him to do the honors,” Tim added. “Who does that remind you of? And did you see how he looked at Newbould? If looks could kill…” He drew his index finger across his throat.
“Furthermore,” Sebastian continued, “he’s a biologist — the study of life.”
“Lastly,” Tim concluded, “there’s his name.”
“What’re you two going on about?” Pip inquired, taking a muesli bar out of her pocket and unwrapping it.
“Nothing strike you as odd, sis?” Tim asked.
Pip looked perplexed.
“About what?”
“Miss Bates’s stand-in. The substitute guy.”
“No. Why should it? Substitute teachers’re as common as wasps at picnics. Here today, gone next week.”
“Think about it, sis.”
Pip shrugged and put the bar between her teeth.
“Think of his name,” Tim pressed her. “Mr. Loud-acre. Mr. David Loudacre, Mr. D. Loudacre.”
It was as if Pip had forgotten she had the muesli bar in her mouth. She froze, and it was at least fifteen seconds before her hand lowered and she removed the bar from between her lips.
“Oh! My God!” she whispered timorously “It’s de Loudéac. It’s Malodor!”
“Couldn’t you tell from the pendant?” Tim said.
Pip looked a little awkward and said, “I’ve not got it on.”
“What!” Tim replied, his anger roused. “Why the hell not? What do you think it’s for?”
“I didn’t want Scrotton to try and nick it again. It was Queen Joan’s,” she added defensively.
“I don’t care if it was Cleopatra’s or the Queen of Sheba’s. You…”
“This disputatious quarrel is academic,” Sebastian interjected. “What is done is done.”
“He must have recognized us,” said Tim.
“Probably,” Sebastian answered. “Yet it matters not, for he will not have expected you to have recognized him, and therefore he will not feel threatened or at risk. As for me,” Sebastian looked himself up and down and ran his fingers through his hair. It had grown at least a centimeter since Pip had restyled it and had become distinctly spiky. “I hardly appear as I did.”
“Say no more!” Tim exclaimed.
“I was not intending so to do,” Sebastian replied.
“Shall we return to planet earth?” Pip suggested, regaining some of her composure. “What we want to know is why is he here and what’s he up to?”
They reached the far corner of the playground and turned towards the horse chestnut tree. Most of the leaves had fallen, so it was easy to be sure that Scrotton was not squatting in the boughs like a malicious rook.
“It seems abundantly apparent,” Sebastian said, “that Loudacre, de Loudéac, Malodor — call him what you will — is assisting Yoland in the creation of the Scrotton replicates. As to what other part he will play in the spreading of evil, time will reveal.”
Just before they left school that afternoon, the Atom Club members gathered in Chemistry Laboratory One, to be addressed by Yoland.
“On Friday, as I am sure I need not remind you,” he announced, “we are making our visit to Jasper Point, departing in the school minibus at noon. You will bring packed lunches, which are to be consumed en route. School bags may be taken, but they must be left in the minibus during our visit. No valuables may be brought. Do not bring a camera. Photography is not permitted at Jasper Point for obvious security reasons. You will be required to bring a ballpoint pen.”
The laboratory door opened.
“As you will all know from your primary school, all school outings must be accompanied by two or more members of staff…”
The club members looked around. Tim, Pip and Sebastian had no need to: they knew who had just entered.
Loudacre approached the demonstration desk and stood next to Yoland.
“With the German exchange, we are somewhat short of teachers this week,” Yoland said, “so Mr. Loudacre has kindly agreed to step into the breach.”
Yoland smiled at Loudacre and turned back to the pupils.
“I need not say that your behavior must be exemplary,” he went on. “Not only are you ambassadors for the school but you are also entering an environment fraught with danger. You will do exactly as you are told at all times. You do not wander off, you pay attention to the Jasper Point staff, who will not only be mindful of your safety, but will impart to you much fascinating information of which you will take notes on worksheets provided. We should be on site for about two hours and return to the school at approximately four o’clock. Kindly remind your parents. School buses will not depart until after our return. Any questions? Very well, off you go. I’m sure we’ll all have a most interesting day.”
As they left the laboratory, Tim muttered under his breath, “Of that we can be as sure as big tigers have large stripes.”
Fourteen
Half-lives Half-deaths
The white minibus was parked to one side of the school gates, the school crest and name emblazoned on the side. Yoland sat in the driver’s seat, against which leaned the old attaché case Pip had last seen under the desk in his study. At the bus door stood Loudacre, marking off each pupil’s name on a list as they boarded. To each he smiled pleasantly and made a friendly comment.
Passing close to him, Pip just discerned the faint odor of a carton of apple juice past its sell-by date and sour milk. It made her feel slightly sick, although whether from the odor of the teacher or her own fear she was not sure. The thought of traveling in the confines of a minibus with Malodor was not an enticing one.
“Got Queen’s Joan’s bauble on?” Tim asked Pip in an undertone.
“No point, really,” she answered. “We all know where the evil is. It would be vibrating all day long like a bee in your bra.”
“A vespa in your vest,” Sebastian suggested.
“A what?” Tim retorted. “A motor scooter in her vest!”
“Vespa,” Sebastian added disconsolately, his attempt at a joke falling flat, “is Latin for a wasp.”
Once in the vehicle, Pip, Sebastian and Tim sat about halfway back. Loudacre installed himself in the seat by the door, while Scrotton was by the emergency exit at the back. On the penultimate row of seats was a large, dark-blue bag with handles and p
rinted with the name of a leading sports-equipment manufacturer.
“Please, sir,” Tim asked Loudacre with feigned naivete, “what’s that bag for?”
Loudacre looked at it as if noticing it for the first time and replied, “I’ve no idea. I think it must have been left by the last people to use the bus. That, I think, was the First Eleven soccer team yesterday afternoon.”
“Like, yeah!” Tim muttered to Sebastian. “Sergeant Major Form-a-Line forgetting the gear? I think not…”
Yoland started the engine, and a cloud of smoke erupted briefly from the exhaust.
“Does everyone have their seat belt on?” Yoland called out.
Loudacre made his way down the minibus like an air hostess checking passengers before takeoff and confirmed they did. The gearbox grated and the minibus lurched forward.
Taking a main road towards the coast, it was not long before there appeared on the horizon five huge square buildings, painted gray, from which rows of tall, high-tension pylons ranged out across the countryside.
“Looks like they’re marching across the land, a steel army on the advance,” said Pip.
As she spoke, she caught sight of Loudacre’s face. A tiny smile flickered across his lips.
Yoland slowed the minibus, turning left off the main road down a well-maintained side road. On the corner was a small signpost to Cockleton and a much larger one which read: National Power —Jasper Point Nuclear Power Station: 6 miles.
“Six miles!” Pip exclaimed. “Those buildings must be vast. I thought they were no more than a mile off.”
Some way down the road, they arrived at the village of Cockleton. On entering it, Yoland had to pull onto the side of the road to allow a convoy of seven massive, high-sided trucks, preceded by a police escort, to pass in the opposite direction.
“Nuclear waste,” Tim remarked.
Most of the cottages, some of them thatched, faced on to the road. They were splattered with mud as high as the windows. The bushes in the gardens were discolored with a thick layer of dingy dust. The pub sign badly needed repainting, and the thatch was tattered where the trucks had rubbed against the eaves.
